Category: Theology

It has become quite a pattern today for some who left the Christian faith to rail against Christians, quite viciously sometimes, sometimes with a lot of hate.  This may be fueled by actual abuse from their past.  The claim is made that Christians are all a bunch of hypocrites.  These claims may also be simply a way to suppress the truth, to continue in rebellion against Him, and to not face His claims.  However, revivalists like Dr. Mike Brown have also been very strong about the condition of the Church in America.  His base for criticism is the truth of the Bible.  We could ask what is the standard by which people criticize.  My point here is not to defend or critique the American Church.   I will say there are stellar examples, both individuals and communities.  One can find them if one desires. Again, for some this railing is simply a way of fighting against Yeshua’s claims upon us.  If we are too harsh to the Church, which is part of Messiah’s bride, we can offend God and find Him opposing us.  

Thomas Dubay, the late and amazing Catholic theologian from Catholic University in Washington, D. C, says a religion best known by its best representatives.  They show great evidence of the truth of biblical faith. In Catholic thought, these are the saints.  G. K. Chesterton and C. S. Lewis made the same argument.  Protestants and Messianic Jews don’t think much about saints.  We say all believers are saints, though we have some examples we always point to (Hudson Taylor in China and George Mueller in England).  Dubay’s argument is found in his amazing apologetic book, The Evidential Power of Beauty.  I read it once every year!!

I have reflected upon this and realized that this argument is true.  I credit both the communities that attain a level of love, godliness, and service that is outstanding and individuals. They show what is possible in Gospel.  However, I want to point to those stellar individuals that are signs of God’s reality on earth.  When you are in the presence of holy godliness in a person, the reality is amazing.  My spiritual father at Wheaton, Chaplain Evan Welsh is one such example. He was living proof of the existence of God and the reality of Jesus.  Kindness was etched on his face. Love came through continually.  There was joy and confidence that was wonderful.  I could not get enough of being in his presence.  I had a spiritual father in High School who also ended up as such a saint!  He led many to Yeshua. This is characteristic of saints.  Some rebellious did not see it that way.  Chaplain was too simplistic, too simple (he had a master’s from Princeton!) When my mother came to Wheaton for my graduation in 1969, she entered his home with me. Chaplain was not yet there. She said she felt a wonderful presence.  Does the Spirit dwell in greater measure in the homes of saints?  I think so.  I named my son after him. I have known a few others whose love, joy, holiness, humility, and grace were outstanding.  One such person I see today, in whose presence I have a similar response, is Heidi Baker who ministers in Africa.  She and her husband Rolland wrote the book “Always Enough.” They have rescued thousands of orphans and planted thousands of churches. But it is not the greatness of the ministry only, but the quality of her presence.  One story is told of Smith Wigglesworth. A  man ran into him on a train.  He did not know him.  He sensed the Holy Presence.  He turned to him and said his presence made him feel the depth of his own sin.  Amazing. On the spot conviction due to the Presence.

Yes, faith is known best by the very best among us, the saints.  Thank God for them. 

This little phrase is packed with truth.  It can be used as a trite response to those who reject our biblical worldview, but when rightly applied it is powerful.  It is most powerfully manifest in the ministry of Yeshua.  He told the woman caught in adultery and released from punishment, “Go and sin no more.”  A crippled was healed and Yeshua exhorted him to depart from sin lest a worse thing come upon him.  Yeshua was known to eat with sinners.  He gave his life to rescue them and defended his involvement with the famous words, “Those who well do not need a physician.”  He came to seek sinners. 

The best ministries do not just proclaim the standard of God and define sin but invest in healing the sick, the sinner, the marginalized.   We can think of the amazing ministry of David Wilkerson in the classic story, The Cross and the Switchblade.”  Love for the addicts and pushers in a tough and dangerous area of Brooklyn produced amazing fruit.  One of the best stories is the biography of the early years of Nikky Cruz.  Countless stories of those rescued from prostitution, deviant lifestyles, and the self-centered pursuit of wealth (the tax collectors in the Gospels) show the amazing power of loving the sinner and hating the sin. 

Some do not perceive their own sin or defend their sin.  Biblical Law defines sin. (I John 3:4)  The ideal of that Law is in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7).  Some say that if their chosen path does not harm others, there should be no concern from believers.  However, a biblical Yeshua-centered person has love and compassion for those who claim that their sin is not sin and that it does not hurt others. Their claim is not true.  it, first of all, hurts them.  It robs them of true joy the most important of which is a relationship with the creator.  All who live lives of practicing sin live lives headed for destruction.  Yeshua came that sinners would repent of sin and be changed by his supernatural power. 

Practicing sin is connected to idolatry.  This is the foundational sin.  Idolatry is found in “I am” statements that define self-identity that denies our primary identity in God.  I am “a wealthy businessman,” I am “an actor,” “a homosexual” a “transexual” a “professor.”  The issue is not that all these patterns are sin, but any self-identity that is not based In who we are in God leads to this.  In his book Logo Therapy, Victor Frankel, noted that those who self-identified as their primary identity with higher meaning and purpose, a religious identity, survived the holocaust much better than those who self-identified with pride of position (external and positional meaning).  The latter became camp zombies, but the others preserved their personalities.  This was confirmed in Bruno Bettelheim’s, The Informed Heart.  Two famous psychiatrists saw the truth.  

Any identity that is not secondary to our identity in God ultimately will lead to destruction, either of the individual or the individual and his partners in sin or the society that endorses sin.  Love offers the Gospel way out.  “Repent for the Kingdom of God is available to you.”  Idolatry is the root.  The answer is our self-definition in God, that we are created him his Image and are new creations in the Messiah.  The first is what we all are by creation and the second what we are in Him when we are born again.  

False self-definitions are sin.  The sinner sometimes identifies his sin itself as his identity.  “I am a ________ “  Then fill in the blank.  If you say they are in sin, the anger wells up because you put your finger on self-defining idolatry. 

In a recent post, I told the story of my return from agnosticism/skepticism so many years ago.  I used to say, “I am a skeptic.”  Then God showed up in my car on what was a dark country road in those days, Route 59 in Illinois.  The voice said, “You have gained an identity as a skeptic.”  It had become my identity.  Indeed, when I was at Wheaton College, a few charismatics used to cross themselves after they passed me so that they would not pick up my demon of doubt.  God said that I no longer needed to be a skeptic.  The evidence was sufficient, and I could now be a believer again.  It took some time yet, but I was on the way back. 

At 19 years old, in November 1966, I experienced a spiritual crash, an emotional breakdown.  I came home to my mother (I was a dorm resident in College) in unbelief and feeling like my whole world had blown up.  I ended up with a fine Psychiatrist, a believer.   He kept me alive. I now declared myself a skeptic, an agnostic. 

In this state, I visited my history of philosophy professor at The King’s College in New York (before I transferred to Wheaton College).  Dr. David Wolfe was a brilliant thinker.  When I declared myself an agnostic, he asked what kind of agnostic I would be.  Would I be an open or  closed agnostic?  The open one says, “I do not know and doubt that others know, but I am open to new evidence and argument that can convince me of the truth about the nature of reality.”  Then there is another divisions.  One is the agnostic without integrity.  He just asserts his agnosticism.  He does not seek out the evidence or reasons given by proponents of different world views, and having seriously studied them, concludes that he is still an agnostic.  However, if still open, new considerations may yield a different conclusion.  The agnostic without integrity does not go on a real search for the truth, but just asserts a stance.  It seems as if he desires agnosticism as his stand, a pre search heart commitment.  

There were two more important David Wolfe statements. One was that if we seek to find the truth we have to set the bar so it is not so high that evidence can not count. So for example, if you conclude God is either not good or existent due to evil and suffering in the world, then no evidence can count from intelligent design, the resurrection or miracles. We have to have a pre search standard whereby we will go one way or another. Also, the second is that all world views have problems. The issue is to choose the best among world views with the least amount of problems. So the problems in a materialistic world view are much greater.  One key is that people set themselves against God and want to live in their own way according to their desires.  Yeshua said, “If any man wills to do God’s will, he will know of the teaching.” (John 7:17)

Dr. Wolf convinced me to be an open agnostic with integrity.  But even so, there now was a proclivity to agnosticism, a pattern of thinking that was ingrained, what C. S. Lewis called the ruts of the brain.   However, I was serious enough that I started to read and study intensely.  I transferred to Wheaton College and studied philosophy of religion for two years plus other relevant courses in psychology, history and theology.  By the end of that two years, it was my conclusion that Christianity had more to accredit it than other religions.  However, it might be the best among all false religious views and that nihilism might be right.  At this point I spent two more years in graduate school majoring in philosophy of religion.  I also looked for miracles, to see proof of the supernatural realm.   In the Spiring of 1970, near to the end of that first grad school year, I concluded to the best of my ability that Christianity was true.  I had the help of spiritual father, the Chaplain of the student body at Wheaton, Dr. Evan Welsh.  I had some professors that were very helpful.  I had some experiences with God.  Today the evidence available is much stronger than when I was searching in those years.  I could explain how this is so at another time.

The 1960s was a time among the youth of searching for the truth.  Philosophy classes at universities were packed with truth seekers, though I am not convinced that philosophy in secular universities is helpful.  There was an orientation of seeking.  I wonder if this is a reason for the outpouring of the Spirit that became known as the Jesus Movement. 

Today it seems that young agnostics and atheists, especially from Christian backgrounds and Messianic Jewish backgrounds are hard hearted.  They are being discipled in the prevailing culture on the internet and ideologically driven colleges.  Many cannot be bothered to read a book on the issues. They are not searching.  They are not open agnostics or agnostics with integrity.  I think of how the great scholar Rodney Stark became a believer in his later years after a lifetime of agnosticism.  He seemed an open searcher.  This is a great concern to me.  I think we will need lots of prayer to see this turned around.  The decline of the numbers of believers is serous.  But God can breakthrough and awaken young adults to care.  So many do not care.  They want to determine their own lives, not to be submitted to any higher power, to live as they desire, and then to die.  There is no ultimate purpose or meaning.  Can they meet believers who are filled with joy and power and be so touched that they awaken?  Let’s pray for this. 

The history of the early Church is amazing.  I use this term, early Church as the normal one for historians and recognize that we are speaking of a mostly Gentile movement, though Messianic Judaism continued for some time in Israel and Syria.  

I here describe the Church before Constantine (316 ff.) and the Council of Nicaea (325 A. D.).  

By the end of the sixth decade of the first century, Paul the Apostle could say that the Gospel had spread to all the world and was growing and triumphing everywhere.  (Col. 1:23) When Paul speaks of the whole world, he means the Roman ruled world, though there is evidence of spread even to India. The book of Acts gives us an accurate account of the development in Israel through chapter ten and then in the nations beginning in Acts 12 and 13.  Antioch was the center of what became a movement of faith among the Gentiles, though Paul first began his presentation in the synagogues.  There was a Jewish background in the synagogues of the Mediterranean world that enabled an easier understanding of the Gospel.  How do we account for this?  It can only be accounted for by the evidence of the resurrection of Yeshua from the dead, the event of the outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost, and the amazing confirming signs and wonders done in the name of Yeshua, Jesus.  The Book of Acts describes this well so that powerful healing came even from the shadow of Peter (Acts 5:15, 16)  and the handkerchiefs of Paul  (Acts 19:12).  

The early Church fathers. bishops of the cities, present a Church that continues to grow by leaps and bounds.  Signs and wonders continued.  It was mostly organized in-house gatherings.  As of yet, there were hardly any buildings for large gatherings.  However, it was not only the miraculous but the quality of the lives of the believers, highly moral, but filled with love, reaching out to all.  In the third century, maybe 1/3 of the population of the Roman Empire died of plagues.  The response of pagans to their sick was to flee and simply leave them to fend for themselves and die.  The Christians took care of their own sick and nursed them.  They also nursed the pagans (polytheists) who were sick.  As a result of prayers for healing and caring for the sick, their percent of survival was much higher.  Thus, by the end of the third century in the Roman world, the battle of Christianity with Paganism was largely won.  People came to faith in Yeshua in droves.  You can read the inspiring story in Rodney Stark’s The Triumph of Christianity. There were other Christian behaviors that won the day: caring for infants given over to infanticide by exposure, caring for the crippled, the poor, the sick in general and so much more. They were disciples of the teaching of Yeshua. 

In 316 A. D., the emperor Constantine became a Christian.  People debate whether his conversion was genuine or not.  They also debate whether it was a good thing or a bad thing since a generation later, the State Church system came into being. However, we can say he saw the “handwriting on the wall.”  He certainly knew he could not defeat them, so he joined them so that the Christian faith would unify his rule.  

The story of the triumph of Christianity over Paganism is a story that only makes sense based on supernatural power and on the basis that the Biblical faith is true. 

I am reading an intriguing book by Jim Wilder and Dallas Willard entitled, God, Dallas Willard, and the Church that Transforms.  One of the Tikkun America leaders recommended the book, The Other Half of the Church, by Michael Hendricks and Jim Wilder.  The book by Willard and Wilder continues and expands upon the material of the first book I read.  I found out from an old friend, pastor, and leader in the movement called Life Model Works, that there is now quite a movement with a network of associated churches. I am very hopeful that this movement will bring significant positive change and renewal in the Church.  

Dallas Willard was a noted philosophy professor at the University of Southern California.  In his later years and until his recent death, he was consumed with discipleship and spiritual formation.  His book, The Divine Conspiracy, was monumental.  It established that the Gospel is the Gospel of the Kingdom, the invitation to live in and from the Kingdom of God under the Lordship of Yeshua.  One can be considered as discipled when that one generally lives in accord with the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) and the teaching of Yeshua and then the Apostles.  It is possible to attain this though of course, not perfectly but generally. The Gospel itself is an invitation for discipleship where God puts all in our lives in the right order and establishes us in a community that furthers discipleship for its members.  Individual and corporate disciplines are presented by Willard in this and other books (The Spirit of the Disciplines).  In his last years, Willard has connected himself to the stream that leads Life Model Works. 

Dr. Jim Wilder for many years connected to a ministry of personal healing and growth, The Shepherd’s House in Van Nuys, California.  Wilder presents himself as a Neuro-theologian.  What does this mean?  He has made himself an expert on the connection of the brain to our thinking, emotions, feelings, and established values.  Wilder is brilliant at noting that we have two sides to our functioning, a right-brain orientation, and a left-brain orientation.  The latter is the slow intellectual processor, and the right is the fast immediate respondent to the whole environment.  The right brain is much more the center of our automatic responses. It is also the center of attachment love.   Much of the failure of discipleship in the Church is due to its limited left-brain approach, encouraging people to absorb information and then make decisions and commitments to implement the teaching.  However, this left-brain approach often fails.  Why?  It is because discipleship and spiritual formation is not just a function of logic and will but a matter of developing attachment love to Yeshua and a spiritual family where we correct one another in love.  We are to love him with all our hearts.  The N. T. emphasis on love for God, Yeshua, and one another is pervasive. That attachment love is the center of growth into conformity to Yeshua.  Without a loving community committed to mutual discipleship in love, most will not be discipled.  Many failures and serious falls among leaders show this deficit in discipleship and attachment love to Yeshua and a loving community.  This community begins for a leader in a mutually accountable circle of leaders.  

Much of this material fits our books, my book, Relational Leadership,  and Covenant Relationships by Asher Intrater.  However, there are helpful additions to what we have taught for many years. Community in Yeshua is central to growth and change, but not just attending meetings as observers.  The books of this movement provide exercises and patterns of mutual accountability in small groups beginning with the elders, that make them much more effective in discipleship.   

I do have one correction and that is that the language over emphasizes the brain where one could believe that Jim Wilder almost believes that the brain is the human personality.  I would like to note how much the soul transcends the brain.  The book by Mario Beauregard, The Spiritual Brain, shows that the mind or soul transcends the brain.  Of course, Wilder believes this. Near-death experiences, the best of which I believe are death and resurrection experiences, prove that the soul can be separated from the body/brain.  I have given much thought to the mind-body problem as it is studied in philosophy.  Though it seems to us that the brain is so integrated and that we could say that our body is ourselves, this is not true.  The brain is a detailed map in this world of the multi-variegated soul, a manifestation in this physical world of the soul.  So, I like to speak of left-brain/mind and right brain/mind or left-brain/soul or right brain/mind.  I would like to recommend that my readers pursue these books and look into Life Model Works.